Baltimore Red Line Underground

Opposition to Controversial Red Line Project Voiced — Loudly

Jon Hyman, Canton resident, and other members of the Canton and Edmondson communities protest the surface rail portions of the proposed Red Line at Tuesday announcement. Photo – The Daily Record.

Press Release [pdf]: Governor O’Malley’s support for a surface train line through Baltimore neighborhoods was loudly shouted down by Baltimore residents at his Tuesday Press Event held at the West Baltimore MARC station.

“The Governor has ignored our concerns about this project, if this is the only way to get him to hear us, this is what we will have to do,” said Jon Hyman, a member of the West-East Coalition, a volunteer citizen group supporting a properly designed mass transit system.

In his speech, the Governor spoke of jobs and Federal money the project would bring, but failed to mention that $1 billion would have to come from the state itself.

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A "portal" where the train enters a tunnel

Boston Street and Edmondson Avenue are both landscaped urban boulevards, with wide medians, sidewalks grass and trees. We have tried to collect pictures from other parts of the country of projects similar to if the proposed Red Line.

Unfortunately, we can’t. Now city in the U.S. has tried to squeeze two tracks into such a tight, heavily trafficked space.

What other cities have done is to run trains in low-traffic areas away from residential streets.

And they are usually in places where cars have an alternate route. But that is not the case with Alternative 4C. For instance, Edmondson Avenue is the only truck route into Baltimore between Wilkins Avenue and Reisterstown Road, and Boston Street is the only truck route into East Baltimore south of US-40. There is no good alternative for either.

Our closest comparisons to Baltimore may be  Seattle’s MLK Jr. Way and Portland’s Burnside Street. These are still a far cry from Alternative 4C in Baltimore for the following reasons:

• These streets carry less traffic and there are alternate routes for vehicles
• The streets are wider, with few houses.  Most areas are industrial or low-density commercial
• The light’s rail right-of-way is wider: in both cases it measures 26-28 feet, where Edmonson is proposed at 22.5 feet and Boston 23-24 feet
• Traffic is farther from the trains. No light rail system including Baltimore’s Howard Street system has been built with cars and trains so close to each other or to vehicles.

Here are what the rails there look like:

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